A/N: Happy Easter y'all, hope you're eating candy and chilling this Sunday. :)
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Chapter Ten
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They learn to accept the cycle. Sunup signals Arthur's change into a raven, and when the sun goes down it's Merlin's turn. He's some sort of dog—not certain what breed, not that it matters. When the sun comes up they start all over again.
He thinks he understands it, at least to an extent. Magic abhors a vacuum. If he wants Arthur's human form back, he must forfeit his own.
Arthur rages for some time over it. He's furious for weeks, months, and sometimes Merlin wonders why.
Then he remembers the prince who was willing to swallow poison for the sake of his servant and he understands. Of course, he thinks, Arthur ought to remember that Merlin had drunk poison for him first. This has always gone two ways.
Eventually he gives up and starts biting Arthur's hand whenever he looks like he's getting too mopey. It makes him feel better, at least.
And so it goes.
There are years, and years, too many for Merlin to remember them all. They cut ties to the life they knew and don't look back; it's the only way this is going to work without either of them going mad. They travel instead. He collects spells and stories from those he finds, druids and hedgewitches and wandering sorcerers.
None of them work. The magic of the Sidhe, it seems, is stronger than anything human magic can produce to counter it. In hindsight, it was incredibly lucky that he'd managed to find as big a loophole in the curse as he had.
Once, in desperation, he calls on Kilgharrah. He tries over and over again, shouting to the winds in the dragon's tongue, but there is no reply, and he knows what has happened. There may not have been much love lost between Merlin and the old dragon, but he still mourns. He mourns the loss of one more piece of their old life.
Merlin does learn a few things over time, however. The most important being that the raven shows no signs of aging, of slowing down, and the day he realizes this is the day a massive weight eases from his chest.
He's known for some time that he doesn't age like other people do; it's half the reason they never stop moving for long. He lived a long time haunted by the horrible certainty that someday Arthur would die, of old age if nothing else, and then what would he do?
He's not even sure if he could take his own life. Would the earth and its magic, all those things Balinor told him he was bound to, allow him that relief?
But the raven remains hale and hearty—as hearty as an irritable human-turned-bird can be, anyway—and that's enough for him. Merlin tries not to question it, but he does remember the Sidhe elder's promise.
"He will live," he had said, and Arthur does. He lives and lives.
It's one less thing to worry about, at least.
Years and years and years. Time whirls around them; faces come and go, and Merlin feels as if he is standing still even as he moves across the country, across the continent, beyond, the raven always at his side.
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It's pouring rain, which aside from being a monumental cliché means no one is around to stop Mordred from running headlong into the forest, an ancient and probably priceless map tucked under his jacket.
The trees at least provide some cover from the rain, so he pulls the map out and squints at it, trying to remember what Arthur had told him. Trying to remember how the hell to read a map in the first place.
The darkness is rising, and Mordred's anxiety is rising right along with it.
There, he thinks, eyes finding that faint blue spot on the map. He starts running again and hopes he's got the direction right.
Please, please—
It's a soundless prayer, nothing he hasn't done a hundred times before. But what if fate or luck or whatever doesn't answer him this time? What if he's just running in circles? What if he doesn't recognize the signs of a cloaked magical pocket when he stumbles across it?
You can't fuck this up, Mordred tells himself over and over. You've fucked up everything else, but this needs to work. You have to make it work.
And that's when he slams into the wall.
It's not until Mordred is stumbling, fighting the rising tide of nausea, that he realizes there's no wall anywhere in sight. Which makes sense, seeing as he's in a bloody forest.
But there's definitely something, and it's making him feel like he's about to be sick.
Concentrate. He forces himself to focus through the roiling in his stomach. There isn't a physical wall, no, but hadn't Merlin said the Sidhe, whoever they were, had cloaked themselves as some kind of defense mechanism? What better way to tell all of humanity—or at least magically inclined humanity—to fuck off than by making them bring up their dinner whenever they got too close?
See, Merlin, I told you there'd be sensing involved.
The giddiness of discovery lasts about two seconds. There's still the question of breaking the wall. Mordred's played enough video games to know you're supposed to go for the foundations, bring the whole thing down from the very stones it was built on, but there's nothing like that here.
Seconds tick by while his heart pounds. The sky has gone completely black. The eclipse has started already, throwing everything into darkness, and eclipses never last long. Mordred knows he's running out of time.
They all are.
Panic threatens to cut off his air supply; Mordred closes his eyes and struggles to regain his focus.
Visualize what you want your magic to do.
I want it to rip this wall down, he thinks. But I don't know where the wall even is.
Then find it. Feel around, like you did when you first woke your magic on purpose.
Right. Okay. I can work with that. He breathes slowly, evenly. Tries to forget about the ticking clock and the cold rain trickling down his back.
His magic responds more readily than it used to, ease coming with practice, he supposes. Mordred tries to nudge it outside of himself, searching for something else like it. Something he can latch onto.
There.
His eyes fly open as a shock runs through him, like he's just stuck his finger in a socket. Holy shit. So this is what it feels like when magic users actually know what they're doing.
But there's no time right now to marvel. Mordred raises his hand—and then drops it.
He doesn't have a spell.
The realization makes him colder than the rain's been able to; he remembers with the sudden, horrible clarity of panic: Merlin saying he might be able to dig up a spell to break the barrier, if he could just find the barrier first. Well, Mordred's gone and found it.
And now he has no way of breaking it.
Okay, okay, don't panic. Not panicking. Maybe he can just—
Just what? He's fourteen. He doesn't have a fucking clue what he's doing.
"Shit!" he screams, giving in to frustration. Unbelievable. He's this close and now he can't finish the job?
Get a hold of yourself, the reasonable little voice in his head snaps. Spells direct the magic, remember? They don't make it appear or disappear. They just funnel it to its purpose.
Exactly! Mordred snaps back—and apparently he's finally cracked, the crazy boy arguing with himself in the middle of the woods, but he's got too much else on his mind right now to be overly concerned. I need the control, look what happened when I let loose without it!
You blew up your room.
Yes, Mordred thinks irritably, I blew up my room.
Sort of like how you want to blow up this magical wall right now?
Like— Mordred's eyes widen. Oh. Oh.
Yes. 'Oh'.
There's no time to waste. Mordred lifts his hand again. He closes his eyes.
It's not going to be like how it was before, when all his magic wanted was to escape and wreak havoc. Mordred had let it; he hadn't known what else to do, then. He'd been scared.
He can't be scared now.
Go on, he thinks, feeling the magic stir hopefully somewhere inside him. You wanted to run wild, right?
So do it.
And apparently his magic doesn't need to be told twice, because that's when the world explodes.
Again.
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Arthur's had this dream before.
It's not the dreamscape, or whatever Merlin calls it; Arthur's true dreams never take place on a beach. They don't even feature Camelot anymore, at least not nearly as often as they used to.
Instead they begin so normally Arthur would be hard-pressed to identify them as dreams early on. They usually start in the flat, or in the bookshop, or even on the street where he runs at night when no one else will bother him. Things will feel normal.
He'll turn around, and Merlin will be there, hale and whole and human, only Arthur won't be seeing it through a bird's eyes.
He'll turn around and—
It doesn't matter what happens next, really. All the important things are established in the first ten seconds.
The strange thing is that no matter how many variations his mind creates out of the same situation, he never realizes he's dreaming. Not until he wakes up, maybe perched on something improbable or maybe with the dog snoring softly in the background somewhere, at which point he begins to halfheartedly wish it were possible to pull his brain out of his ears when he tries to sleep.
Over time he's begun to understand why Merlin refused to sleep for days, all those years ago. Even good dreams turn to nightmares when reality flat-out refuses to equal them.
Arthur tells himself that it's no different this time. Except that he's apparently figured out how to know when he's dreaming. That's a step up, he supposes.
They're in the bookshop, which isn't unusual. The sky is dark, no moonlight in it, turning the room into little more than a collection of shadows with stray beams of streetlights streaking in, but it doesn't matter. Merlin is Merlin is Merlin, and he's sitting on the floor with his mouth hanging open like an idiot.
Typical, really. He never did have a sense of ceremony, and Arthur supposes his mental image of Merlin is no exception.
"You look ridiculous," he says, just to say something.
Merlin is still gaping, blue eyes wide. Arthur frowns. Real or imagined, this is usually the point at which Merlin says something he thinks is witty in response to Arthur's assessment of his character. Yet nothing seems forthcoming.
Arthur tries again. It's an odd sensation, trying to manipulate a dream when you know you're in one. "I realize I've made a point of telling you to shut up more or less constantly, but now that I think about it, the whole silence thing doesn't suit you. It's actually rather unnerving."
Mechanically, Merlin begins to pinch himself in the arm. Arthur is beginning to worry. Maybe he has wandered into the dreamscape thing somehow. Maybe he's broken it. God, Merlin would never let him hear the end of it.
"Listen—" It becomes clear that Merlin's gaze has shifted, going to a point somewhere over Arthur's shoulder, which feels disproportionately annoying. "What is so fascinating?"
He doesn't wait for an answer, turning around instead to see for himself.
At first Arthur doesn't understand. Outside of the window, above the city lights, the sky is pitch-black. The moon is nowhere to be seen—hiding behind a cloud, most likely, Arthur's not overly concerned—
But then he sees it:
The pitch-black sphere where the moon—the sun?—ought to be, a gaping hole ripped from the fabric of the sky.
The eclipse.
Arthur's mouth goes dry.
He's almost afraid to turn around again, afraid that Merlin will have somehow disappeared while his eyes were elsewhere—vanished like every other dream Arthur's had.
But he isn't. He's there, and he's standing, supporting himself against the arm of a chair, and suddenly Arthur has no idea what to do with his hands.
"Is this—" Merlin's voice sounds like he's been swallowing sandpaper. He clears his throat. "Are we—"
"I don't know," Arthur interrupts. His heart feels like it's trying to crawl up out of his mouth. "Does it matter?"
If this is a dream, Arthur realizes, he doesn't care. He doesn't care.
There is a room between them. Merlin crosses it in three strides, all unsteadiness gone, and has flung his arms around Arthur's neck before he has any time to react, face buried in Arthur's shoulder.
He freezes for an instant. If he touches this and it shatters, he thinks he's going to go a bit mad after all.
Merlin is trembling, though. He can feel it—shaking so hard Arthur's surprised he can't hear his teeth rattling. It knocks loose some long-useless instinct that has Arthur putting his arms around him before he can think anymore about what that might mean.
They breathe. Merlin doesn't shatter.
Well, he's always been stronger than he looks.
Merlin's spine is bent, like he's trying to fold himself into all of Arthur's empty spaces, which makes it easier for him to press his mouth to Merlin's hair. Close his burning eyes and inhale.
He doesn't know how long they stand there, clinging to each other like drowning men to a life preserver. Eventually he finds his voice again.
"Still here?"
Merlin huffs a laugh against his neck. It's shaky and clogged with tears and it's the best damn thing Arthur's heard in a long time.
"Still here," Merlin says.
They got seven minutes last time, Arthur remembers. He doesn't know how long they have now, but he finds he doesn't really care about that, either.
After all, his kingdom and those he loved within it are long gone. Seven minutes is far more than he ever expected to feel again of home.
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It feels like there should be dust settling when Mordred opens his eyes again, or something equally dramatic, but there isn't any.
Just a huge lake that hadn't been there thirty seconds ago.
Because, you know. This is Mordred's life now.
Even with the proven track record of crazy he's got under his belt at this point, he still has to blink a good ten times before he accepts he's actually seeing what he's seeing: A lake that spreads for miles, dark blue and still enough that its surface looks like glass. If moonlight were hitting it, though, it would sparkle—like something vibrant, something ancient and youthful and utterly alive.
Mordred doesn't know how he knows this.
Far out in the center of the lake stands an island with a dilapidated stone tower, and something small bobbing in the water nearby—a boat? Maybe a bier?
Mordred shivers. This place is silent, he realizes, free of any birdsong or animal chatter. Even the rain has stopped, almost like it's afraid to disturb the perfect stillness of Avalon.
It takes him three tries, clearing his throat again each time, to manage a "Hello?"
The sound doesn't echo back; it's like the lake swallows it. His voice is absorbed with no answer given in exchange.
"I'm here to ask a favor from the Sidhe," Mordred tries. Maybe they only respond to people who talk like something out of a period drama.
Still nothing. The lake is as silent as the proverbial grave.
Mordred is struck by the sudden, terrifying thought that maybe he's wandered into a pocket not of magic, but of time—somehow stumbled on a place that only exists, frozen, two thousand years ago. What if he can't get back? What if he's trapped here, the Sidhe long since died off, nothing but him and the silence for the rest of his life?
Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe you've read too many science fiction novels?
Arthur's voice in his head has no reason to be reassuring, calming even, but it is.
Mordred exhales slowly. Tries once more.
"I need your help," he says.
"And why should we grant favors to you, Arthur's Bane?"
The voice is cold, and ancient, and maybe a little amused, so Mordred isn't as surprised as he should be when he turns around and sees—
A fairy?
Something tells him he'll get blasted to kingdom come if he says it, so he clamps his mouth shut. Besides, the little blue creature with the icy eyes doesn't seem like the wand-waving type.
"Has your tongue shriveled in your head?" the fairy—the Sidhe wants to know. "A moment ago you couldn't cease using it."
Mordred forces himself to unfreeze. "I came to ask a favor."
"Yes, as you said before. And what favor might that be?"
"I want—" Mordred swallows. There's something about the air in here. "I want you to remove a curse you set."
The Sidhe looks unimpressed. "We have not laid a curse in many, many years. You are mistaken."
"No, I'm not. I'm talking about the curse you put on Arthur and Merlin when they came to you for help."
It's not until the twist of the Sidhe's mouth changes that Mordred realizes it has, up to now, been smiling. Or smirking.
"Emrys," he growls. "Even now he finds new ways to torment us."
Merlin, the voice in his head whispers. Mordred can't help himself. "Can you blame him? You turned the love of his life into a bird."
"Yes, and we have witnessed his feeble attempts to undo his own foolishness," sneers the Sidhe. "Trying to forswear his oath, as if it were a thing so easily broken. Trying to alter the terms of our bargain on his own—forfeiting his own form in the process! Emrys is a fool. He has long since lost the right to beg favors from us."
"But Emrys isn't asking," Mordred points out, trying to stay calm. "I am."
The Sidhe gives him a considering look. "True. Yet you still haven't told us why we should listen."
Mordred has the definite feeling he's going to regret asking. "What do you want?"
"What we desire, what we have long desired, is to be left in peace by foolish humans who cannot solve their own problems."
"But this isn't their problem!" Mordred bursts out. "It never was! They didn't ask to be like this, haven't they suffered enough?"
"Emrys asked for his king's life, and so his king's life was given. If he wished more from the bargain he need only have said. Yet he did not, and we are not to blame if he finds himself dissatisfied with the outcome." The Sidhe's tone is dismissive. "Leave now. We are in need of new borders, it would seem."
He turns his back as Mordred stands there in disbelief. In all honesty, he never thought he'd actually find Avalon. He hadn't planned this far ahead. Merlin was right; he's a child to them. He can't outtalk an ancient fairy.
But I can't just let it end here!
His reasonable little voice answers, only it doesn't sound so reasonable anymore: No. I can't.
Something strange happens then.
Mordred speaks, but the words are not his own.
"Do you know who I am?"
The Sidhe pauses, turns back to face him but says nothing.
"I think you do. You called me by a very old name," Mordred continues. "But do you know who I am?"
There is a twist to the Sidhe's features, an expression he can't name. "You are the empty shell of one once great. Do you seek to threaten us, as Emrys once did? Make no mistake, boy, we sensed your presence in this world the moment you returned to it. We thought perhaps—" His lip curls over pointy teeth. "Yet you are weak now. You have lost the power you once wielded, and you are no threat to us."
"You forget yourself," Mordred murmurs. "I am Arthur's Bane. Don't you remember what that means?"
His voice hardens into stone. "It means I killed King Arthur, the greatest of kings. I drove a dragon-forged sword through his heart and he kneeled at my feet. I outwitted Emrys, the greatest sorcerer ever to walk the earth. All of his powers and prescience could not stop me then, and now…" A shrug. "Now he has taught me everything I know. Would you call that irony?"
"You lie," the Sidhe snarls.
"As easily as I breathe," says Mordred agreeably. "But not in this. And not when I say I will burn your sanctuary to ashes if you refuse me."
"I have lived longer than the very earliest of men, boy, do you think I do not recognize a bluff when I hear one?" the Sidhe snaps, but there is a flicker of fear in those cold eyes.
Mordred reaches out and speaks the first spell Merlin ever taught him:
"Forbearnan."
The flames erupt from his palm just as they did the last time, spiraling out faster than any natural fire would, an ever-growing pinwheel of orange and red so close to spinning out of control and burning everything down around his ears.
But they won't, he knows. Not this time.
Not unless he tells them to.
The fire builds higher and higher, scraping the sky in moments, or at least it seems that way from the ground. Something about the sight makes him dizzy, something like vertigo; Mordred knows, with a sudden cold certainty, that if he wished it, he could burn the water from the deepest reaches of Avalon. He could turn this place of legend into nothing more than parched earth and dust motes on the wind.
He could, but would he?
Maybe the voice speaking through him now, that voice that speaks down through the millennia, would have the ability to grit his teeth and do what needs to be done, but Mordred isn't so sure. What is he willing to part with for the sake of his friends? How much of his soul is he willing to sacrifice?
For now, at least, he won't need to know.
"Enough," the Sidhe bellows. Mordred is startled to see sweat shining on its blue face.
Carefully, slowly, he allows the flames to die down. It's almost as if they disappear into his skin, as if he's simply holding them somewhere inside for the next time they might be needed.
"We will grant you this favor," the Sidhe says, acidic. "Yet we would have something in return."
You mean something other than not burning this place to the ground? In the spirit of reconciliation, he doesn't say it. His words are his own again.
"What do you want? And if you could be a little more straightforward this time, that'd be great."
"We would have a promise from you. Sworn on blood and magic."
More and more suspicious. Great. "Let's hear it, then."
The Sidhe's eyes narrow. "Swear that you will never again set foot on Avalon's shores after this day. And swear to your silence—you will never tell a soul, living or dead, where the lake stands or how to find it. Swear, and we will end our bargain with Emrys and his king."
Mordred thinks it over. "Fine."
Nodding in what's probably supposed to be a gracious way, the Sidhe produces a knife from nowhere and offers it to Mordred. He takes it.
It's a small thing, and fine, and it cuts into his forearm like butter. Not that he really wants to make a habit out of this whole blood bargain nonsense, but if it's going to become a thing, Mordred thinks he'd definitely choose fairy blades over, say, a kitchen knife. Just as an observation.
The cut is small, but the blood wells up quickly to spill on the ground between them. The soil drinks it up thirstily. Mordred supposes it hasn't had much to drink over the last few centuries, if blood is what it prefers.
He takes a deep breath to steady himself. Here we go.
"I swear I will never set foot in Avalon after today. I also swear that I will never tell another soul, living or dead—" Seems an odd distinction to make, really, but then he is speaking to fairies. "—where the lake is or how to get to it.
"But," he adds quickly, and sees the Sidhe twitch. "I'm adding a condition. The former king Arthur and the warlock Emrys, called Merlin, must be immediately freed from any and all bargains previously made with the Sidhe. They must have their original, human forms permanently returned to them. If this condition isn't met, then the oath I've just sworn will not hold. This I also swear."
"You overreach," hisses the Sidhe.
"Maybe," Mordred answers; his heart is going about a million miles a minute, a crazed bird fluttering inside of his ribcage, but he's proud to say that his voice stays even. "But every word I said will hold, I'm sure about that. So as long as everybody holds up their end of the deal, we shouldn't have a problem."
He smiles. And wonders, distantly, if he's about to be turned into a greasy smear on the ground.
Deep down, though, he knows there's nothing the Sidhe can do. His blood is drying, soaking into the earth; Avalon itself has accepted his conditions, and the Sidhe are only its inhabitants, not its rulers. They're bound to the will of its magic just as Mordred is. Just as Arthur and Merlin have been.
The Sidhe speaks, and his tone is bitter. "Very well. It will be as you say." There is a glimmer in his eyes. "To be outmaneuvered by a human again, after all these years…you may truly be a worthy heir to Emrys."
And that, well. Mordred has to make a face. "Arthur's Bane, Emrys' Heir…honestly, I think you're all way too fond of epithets. I'm Mordred. That's all I've ever been."
And I have finally been redeemed, the voice in his head murmurs. But it isn't his, Mordred realizes. It never has been.
Still, he can feel when it vanishes—lifted on the wind just like the invisible weight has been from his chest.
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